Proper Language, Proper Citizen: Standard Practice and Linguistic Identity in Primary Education
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Proper Language, Proper Citizen: Standard Linguistic Practice and Identity in Macedonian Primary Education by Amanda Carroll Greber A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures University of Toronto © Copyright by Amanda Carroll Greber 2013 Abstract Proper Language, Proper Citizen: Standard Linguistic Practice and Identity in Macedonian Primary Education Doctor of Philosophy 2013 Amanda Carroll Greber Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures University of Toronto This dissertation analyzes how the concept of the ideal citizen is shaped linguistically and visually in Macedonian textbooks and how this concept changes over time and in concert with changes in society. It is focused particularly on the role of primary education in the transmission of language, identity, and culture as part of the nation-building process. It is concerned with how schools construct linguistic norms in association with the construction of citizenship. The linguistic practices represented in textbooks depict “good language” and thus index also “good citizen.” Textbooks function as part of the broader sets of resources and practices with which education sets out to make citizens and thus they have an important role in shaping young people’s knowledge and feelings about the nation and nation-state, as well as language ideologies and practices. By analyzing the “ideal” citizen represented in a textbook we can begin to discern the goals of the government and society. To this end, I conduct a diachronic analysis of the Macedonian language used in elementary readers at several points from 1945 to 2000 using a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods. I catalogue and chart the frequency of certain linguistic forms and changes in their usage over time and contextualize these choices and changes within the greater changes of the narratives in the books. I conduct a similar analysis of the visual depictions of identity in these textbooks and the content of the textbooks with respect to notions of identity, nationalism, and other cultural factors. ii Acknowledgements There are many people who have sustained me on this path of academic pursuit and whom I would like to thank. First, I would like to express my deep gratitude to my thesis committee, Prof. Christina E. Kramer, Prof. Joseph Schallert, and Prof. Monica Heller, for their intellectual guidance and consistent encouragement. I gratefully acknowledge my supervisor, Prof. Kramer, for her guidance, wisdom, and prompt and constructive critique, as well as her boundless patience and faith in my abilities, which were a great source of my confidence during my PhD studies and while writing this dissertation. Every student should be so fortunate to have such a wonderful and supportive advisor. I am also deeply grateful to Prof. Schallert for his expert advice and thoughtful suggestions, and his humor and positive outlook. I extend my sincere appreciation to Prof. Heller for her provocative and insightful comments and questions, which have helped sharpen the analysis in this work and for my future work. I also thank Prof. Heller for her patience and support. I could not have chosen a better committee and I am honored to have had the opportunity to know and work with all of you. It was my great pleasure and privilege to have had Prof. Wayles Browne as my external examiner, and Prof. Dragana Obradovic as my internal examiner. I greatly appreciate Prof. Browne’s thoughtful comments, as well as his careful and detailed reading of my thesis. I am very fortunate to have had such a careful reader. I sincerely thank Prof. Obradovic as well for her genuine and generous comments and encouragement. In addition, many other professors provided me with support in various capacities on my PhD journey. In particular, I thank Drs. Leonid Livak and Julia Mikhailova for their support and encouragement during my PhD and for their roles in helping me become a better teacher. Their passion and enthusiasm in the classroom has been an inspiration. iii I would also like to thank my friends and colleagues, both in Toronto and in Macedonia. I am grateful for the help, support, and advice I received from Drs. Marjan Markovik, Emilija Crvenkovska, Elena Petroska, and Gordana Aleksova at the University of Ss. Cyril and Methodius in Skopje. I also extend my thanks to Gazmend Ilazi and John Surface at the American Embassy who provided me with support during my Fulbright in Macedonia. I extend my thanks as well to American Councils for International Education and the Fulbright Program for financial support while completing my archival work in Macedonia. My eternal gratitude goes to my family, especially my parents, Carolyn and Howard Greber, whose unconditional love, support, understanding, and patience have sustained me throughout my academic pursuits. They have inspired me and have taught me the importance of hard work, commitment, and perseverance which enabled me to complete this dissertation. I also wish to thank my mother for her help with proofreading seemingly-endless drafts of this dissertation. Finally, I thank my boyfriend, Max Rempel, for his love, encouragement and faith in my abilities and my work. His support has continually bolstered my confidence, and he has pushed me to overcome the hurdles and get to the finish line. I cherish him for making my life fuller with his company, friendship, humor, and love. iv List of Tables Table 1: Percentage of Texts Containing the Following Themes Table 2: Percentage of Illustrations Containing the Following Themes v List of Appendices Appendix 1: Dialect Map of Macedonia Appendix 2: List of Macedonian Textbooks vi Table of Contents Abstract ........................................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgements ....................................................................................................................... iii List of Tables ...................................................................................................................................v List of Appendices ........................................................................................................................ vi Chapter 1 – Introduction ..................................................................................................................1 Chapter 2 – Macedonian Language and Standardization ..............................................................33 Chapter 3 – Textbook Language ....................................................................................................57 Chapter 4 – Textbook Images ........................................................................................................79 Chapter 5 – Conclusion ................................................................................................................109 Appendix 1: Dialect Map of Macedonia ......................................................................................116 Appendix 2: List of Macedonian Textbooks ...............................................................................117 Bibliography ................................................................................................................................118 vii Chapter 1 – Introduction1 In 1946 in Skopje, Macedonia, only one year after the standardization of the Macedonian language, an adult literacy educational booklet was produced – Bukvar za vozrasni, “A Reader for Adults.” Macedonia was still rebuilding from World War II and adjusting to the new communist regime. The mostly rural population, many of whom had never left the villages in which they were born, would have to adjust to a new system of society, collectivist and industrial, and would have to learn a new standard language in which they had never been educated. The primary aim of this Bukvar was to teach literacy in the new standard language, but its secondary aim was to teach the culture and values of the new state, and it did so both explicitly and implicitly, through various linguistic choices and illustrations, such as scenes of Socialist labor and Yugoslav multiculturalism. A look at this Bukvar touches upon many of the issues discussed in this thesis: the shaping of citizenship, standard and non-standard language practice, and visual and linguistic representations of national and civic identity. In the first section of the Bukvar the alphabet and basic reading skills are introduced, the second section contains various passages for reading, and the third section teaches basic mathematics. In terms of language, the presentation of a relatively unvarying prescriptive standard in the first section of the book implicitly underscores the ideology of standard language, and the use of specific linguistic forms (and the omission of others) serves to reimagine the boundaries of the language community and seems intended to produce a certain kind of speaker by legitimizing only one way of speaking. The second section, however, exhibited greater language variation, which, while perhaps inadvertent (the passages seem to have been written by different people in 1 Research for this paper was supported in part by the Title VIII Southeast European Research Scholar Program, which is funded by the U.S. State Department, Program for Research and Training on Eastern Europe and the Independent States of the former Soviet Union and administered by